Monday, March 07, 2016

Why we must all work so hard to protect our membership of the EU!

On Sunday morning, 6th March 2016, Boris ‘Bo-Jo’ Johnson appeared on the Andrew Marr show.

He was there to speak against Britain’s continued membership of the EU, and he made a complete arse of himself.

Johnson likes to give the impression that he is a voice for Britain,
that somehow he ‘speaks for England’. Quite where this self-anointed
mantle of authority has come from is a mystery to me. As far as I am
concerned, Johnson is a buffoon, a charlatan and a ‘little englander’!However, that is not to say that he is not a very dangerous commentator.

He possesses that style of speaking which many uninformed British
observers mistake for deep knowledge trying hard to appear as the voice
of the common man.

In reality, Johnson is a composite ‘chancer’ who has seen an
opportunity to set his cap at becoming the next Prime Minister, and he
is using the excuse of ‘Brexit’ as a means of promoting his own campaign
for PM.

The really evil element to Johnson’s rhetoric is that no-one exactly
knows quite what he stands for. Frankly, I doubt whether Johnson himself
knows who or what he is and what he stands for, apart from the best
interests of Bo-Jo!

Nevertheless, he may have influenced a lot of watchers, and
particularly, the old guard of the Tory party, none of whom have ever
really reconciled themselves to being part of the EU.

The primary problem with all the EU ‘Nay-sayers’ is that none of them
has the slightest clue what will happen when and if this country were
to stupidly decide to vote against remaining a member.

They do not have any idea how or what will happen to our existing
membership status, and as a result, they have no practical suggestions
or recommendations to make, apart from a generic catch-all ‘we must
leave the EU’!

On the Marr programme, Bo-Jo characterised the EU as a ‘prison’. He
then proceeded to shamelessly mix his metaphors, (which is something
that Bo-Jo does with impunity), by saying that Britain had lost a golden
opportunity to get out of the prison because Government lawyers had
recently vetoed a plan to assert that Parliament could overrule EU law.

Ignoring the fact that the UK Parliament cannot overrule EU law when
it does not suit them, Bo-Jo disingenuously treated this non-sequitur as
a terrible lost opportunity, claiming that it was his road to Damascus
which had converted him to a Brexit believer.

He described the facility to get out of this prison thus;

“...Actually, it will be wonderful, it would be a huge weight lifted from British business...”

Here is a typical Bo-Jo, and by default, very common feature of these
pro-Brexit clowns, who steadfastly refuse to see the many benefits that
membership of the EU has brought the UK, and who then engage in a piece
of special pleading on behalf of ‘British business’. This is entirely
contrary to the views of the vast number of established British
businesses who have voiced their opinions that remaining in the EU is by
far the better option for this country!

It is this shameless appeal to some form of petty patriotism which so
identifies the Bo-Jo tendency (along with Nigel Farage, Jacob
Rees-Mogg, M.P for the Eighteenth Century, Iain Duncan-Smyth et al).
Clearly these men have not appreciated Dr Johnson’s (no relation)
observation that patriotism was the last refuge of the scoundrel!

It all stems from the idea that somehow, by aligning ourselves with
the EU, we have somehow lost a chunk of our much vaunted Sovereignty,
and that Johnny foreigner is making laws which we must obey, but in
which we have had no chance of debate!

Well, what is the reality of the laws which the EU enacts with which we have to comply?

First of all, all EU laws debated in the EU Parliament have a UK
component participation from our MEPs. Sadly, too many of them are
members of UKIP whose actions are aimed at constantly disrupting and
obstructing the EU process, rather than working in an harmonious and
practical manner.

1: Acts put in place by UK Parliament with EU influence — account for between 10-14% of our laws.

2: Regulations influenced by or related to the EU — account for 9-14% of our laws.

They are all almost exclusively focused on areas of administrative
reform and designed to bring us into common parity with other members of
the EU. They are one of the costs of belonging to the EU Club!

All these laws have to be debated in the UK Parliament before they
can be enforced in UK law and they have to be passed just like any other
law.

The EU cannot change our tax laws or our criminal laws. So where is our much vaunted sovereignty being impacted?

What else does the EU effect?

Free trade - The EU is a trade bloc which means there are no
quotas or tariffs for companies exporting goods and services within the
EU. This makes it easier for UK businesses to trade across the EU's 27
states.

Common commercial policy - these are rules put in place to
protect EU businesses using things like tariffs, subsides and quotas on
imports from outside the eurozone.

EU competition law - this means that if you have a company you should have the opportunity to do business across the EU.

The law is designed to stop bigger firms abusing their power by setting up cartels and monopolies.

The internal market - the single market means UK citizens are free to move, live, study and trade anywhere within the EU.

This also affects you when you go on holiday within the European Union because there are no customs limits.

There are also no border controls across most of the EU either - the
UK is one exception to that rule, because we have refused to adopt the
Schengen Principles.

Trans-European networks - many areas of Europe have
benefited from this policy with new roads and transport networks
designed to make it easier for the different countries to transport
goods and services across the EU. Hence the suggestion that the
Cross-Rail link be made larger to accommodate German trains!

Energy - this is a common policy for European energy needs and proposals for making energy greener.

EU energy labels have also been introduced on all electrical goods
like washing machines and even light bulbs to try to make us all more
aware of what energy we're using.

Area of freedom, security and justice - this is designed to
make it easier for police across the EU to cooperate but also to ensure
fair treatment in different judicial systems for all EU citizens.

There is a European arrest warrant that means you can be arrested
anywhere in the EU for more serious crimes committed in another EU
country.

Common fisheries policy - every EU state must stick to rules
on fishing set by Europe. This affects fishermen in the UK, who are
only allowed to fish for certain types of fish at certain times of the
year to conserve stocks. This has had a hugely beneficial effect on
conserving Cod stocks in the North Sea.

There are also understandings on public health, the environment,
consumer protection, transport, social policy, plus economic, social and
territorial cohesion.

There are common foreign, security and defence policies which run
alongside the policies of member states although there is no European
army or single European foreign policy.

Euro MPs don't set our taxes or decide if a local school or
hospital's going to close, but they can have an influence on how we live
our lives.

MEPs passed a law a few years ago significantly cutting the cost of texting from abroad. Roaming rates were also cut.

The Working Time Directive - which gives workers the right to certain
amounts of rest, stops excessive night work and gives people a minimum
amount of holiday every year – It also that means nurses and doctors are
limited to a 48-hour working week.

Of course Bo-Jo just failed to mention that even if we do leave the
EU, we will still be expected to pay a significant contribution to
Brussels in order to be allowed to trade with the market, and on less
favourable terms. Somebody tell me how that is beneficial to us in any
way?

We will also be required to allow free movement of people in order to
trade with them, so in fact nothing will have changed, except it will
have cost us a great deal of money in terms of lost opportunities. The
Pound will have suffered badly on the world’s markets while all the
uncertainty about our future commercial stability was debated, and we
will be in exactly the same position, except this time. outside the
Market.

It is vital that we keep in mind at all time that the vast majority
of those in Parliament who are shouting for Brexit, have alternative
agendas. Bo-Jo believes he can use this destabilising process to
undermine David Cameron and thus promote his own case for Prime
Ministership.

We have been members now for 40 years and we have become, or so we
are told the 5th largest economy in the world. How is that going to be
enhanced if we cut and run from our primary trading market?

Ordinary people must consider that outside the EU, we will be cut off
from all those provisions that protect our rights, rights which have
been protected by EU involvement. At the same time, we will still be
subject to immigrants seeking to come here, they aren’t going to stop
and go elsewhere.

We must demand that those who oppose our rights ro remain within the
EU, tell us exactly what they propose will be the way in which we will
function in the future. Most of the loudest nay-sayers (Bill Cash, Liam
Fox et al, ) are wealthy men to whom the protections afforded by
Brussels do not matter. But they matter to me and to you, and I am not
going to lie down and let these rights get taken away from me by a clown
like Bo-Jo!

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Having spent my career dealing with financial crime, both as a Met detective and as a legal consultant, I now spend my time working with financial institutions advising them on the best way to provide compliance with the plethora of conflicting regulations and laws designed to prevent and forestall money laundering - whatever that might be! This blog aims to provide a venue for discussion on these and aligned issues, because most of these subjects are so surrounded by disinformation and downright intellectual dishonesty, an alternative mouthpiece is predicated. Please share your views with what is published here from time to time!